Congratulations, you’ve decided to start blogging and I’m here to tell you that it is one of the best ways to gain visibility and establish yourself as a subject matter expert.
It’s going to take a little work but there’s value to be gained just as long as you follow a few basic guidelines:
Know your audience.
The more you know about your target audience the better you will be able to focus the content on their interests. Write things in which they have no interest and you will lose readers quicker than you can say “not relevant!”
Decide on your topic and title.
Relax and the ideas will come. My personal approach is to sit back and reflect on the questions people ask me about sales, networking, content development and the other business areas in which I am involved. Their questions become my topics. Pretty easy, huh?
Start writing and let it flow.
Don't worry about your grammar, punctuation or anything else that will stop the flow of words. Keep it conversational and write like you are speaking to just one person. The more conversational the better and ditch the jargon - it’s alienating and no one likes it.
Take a break and reread what you’ve written in a few hours or the next day.
It’s amazing what a little time will do to your thoughts and how you wish to communicate your ideas. Tighten the content, add additional key points, delete anything that is weak and continue to fine-tune for another day.
Correct your grammar and punctuation.
Once you are happy with your article it’s time to correct your grammar and punctuation. Reread your blog several times and try to be thorough. If possible ask someone else to read the content as often as a new set of eyes can catch errors that you missed in your own editing.
Of course if all of this seems to be too burdensome and if you really have neither the time nor inclination to do your own writing you should seriously consider outsourcing your content development. You have many options, the costs are reasonable and by relieving yourself of the burden of writing you’ll have more time to attend to the other areas of your business.
Let us know if we can help.